Teacher Research Initiatives: Teacher Communities of Practice

Teacher research is increasingly recognized nationally and internationally as a critical part of early childhood professional development and noted for its role in advancing knowledge about teaching and learning. This section of Voices of Practitioners highlights the wide range of early childhood teacher research initiatives and inquiry communities through brief summaries. They include contact infroamtion for educators interested in learning more about specific project goals and methods. Teacher Research Inititatives is an ongoing series in which we will post new projects as we receive them.

To submit a summary of your teacher research community of practice, contact Gail Perry, gperry@naeyc.org.

The Dolphin class is using the potty just outside the door, and I hear sobbing from the hallway; a tone in the lead teacher’s voice makes me cringe. After a moment of hearing the crying escalate I jump up and ask the teacher, “Can I give you a hand?” He nods in an exasperated manner, returning to the bathroom where a couple of children remain. I follow the class as they head back to their classroom. Lily is in her mother’s arms, sobbing. She is sad because her mom has come to school to help with building “haunted gingerbread houses” and now she’s leaving, while Lily must stay. Her mom seems to feel guilty and doesn’t know how to extract herself.

At first I try to distract Lily with jokes and silliness, but this strategy isn’t working today. When we get into the classroom Lily’s mom keeps trying to get her to “push her out the door.” Veronica pushes her out instead, causing Lily to burst into hysterics. I ask Lily to help me start getting the tables ready for lunch, and finally convince her to smile as I joke about not knowing whose lunch box is whose. “Does this “Frozen” lunch box belong to Billy? Oh, I know this “Star Wars” one must be Sarah’s!” She cracks a smile and helps me wipe tables down. A couple of other girls want to clean tables too; this sets Lily into tears again. Just then the lead teacher returns. Discovering Lily is still crying he says, “You need to stop crying. If you don’t stop crying your mom won’t be able to come back because you can’t handle it. Get it together.” 4-year-old Lily often has a hard time rebounding from sorrow, which frustrates her teachers. I feel deeply sad for her in this moment because I know that hearing this only makes her sadder. This is not how I want children to be treated.

When I experienced moments like these early in my career, instinct told me that this abuse of power was not the best way to work with children. However, I didn’t have the confidence to stand up to the offenders. Now, as an emerging leader and scholar I feel passionate about building a culture in schools where young children and their teachers experience transformative collaborative learning. Creating that culture begins by standing up against small injustices, though in this instance I didn’t have the authority to reprimand or coach the teacher. I felt frustrated.

Through my reflective practice I began to wonder: How did we get here? Where has the legacy of John Dewey led us? Why is it so important for preschool teachers to “control” young children? Why does it bother me so much? In order to unravel some theoretical and emotional tangles I decided to retrace the philosophical roots of progressive education. I wanted to know what Dewey and Vygotsky would say about how and what to teach young children. I set out to examine four quintessential texts, looking for themes to support my epistemological assumption that children are competent and my ontological precept that, as human beings, children deserve to be treated with respect.

Through close readings of Experience and Education (Dewey 1938), Mind in Society (Vygotsky 1978), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire 1970), and Actual Worlds, Possible Minds (Bruner 1986), I identified three themes that resonated with my personal philosophy of education: freedom, reflection, and the role of social-historical contexts.

Freedom

“The only freedom that is of enduring importance is freedom of intelligence.”

(Dewey 1938, 61)

My parents divorced when I was 8 years old, often leaving my siblings and I to fend for ourselves so our parents could work. Through my own reflective practice I’ve come to realize that I place tremendous value on children’s freedom because of my experiences as a child. I was able to cook, clean, shop, and move about my neighborhood largely unencumbered by adult regulation. This taught me to be self-sufficient and creative. I had to solve my own problems and create my own systems for survival and organization. In reading Dewey (1938) I was moved to consider the balance between freedom and control. My emphasis on freedom in my own childhood has sometimes led me to allow children in my care to do things like climb very tall trees, cut apples with a sharp knife, wade into the ocean in their clothes, or cover the entire classroom in a giant maze of masking tape. What Dewey offers is the warning that freedom needs to be balanced with purpose, causing the responsive practitioner to think in the moment, “Is this meaningful? If so why?” (Dewey 1938, 69). He also illuminates a central conflict in early childhood classrooms frequently presented to me when I discuss the importance of children’s freedom: just because children have freedom does not mean adults are subject exclusively to children’s will (58). Dewey argues for a reciprocal relationship between teachers and students, much as Freire argues for the “humanization” of both the “oppressed” and the “oppressors” (1970, 44). In comparing these texts I realized the struggle for control between children and teachers I often witness stems from an inherent need for freedom and humanization. Because of the factory-like model of larger child care programs (for-profit and subsidized), teachers are both the oppressors and the oppressed. How can teachers support children’s freedom if they themselves are oppressed? Considering preschool teacher’s wages, levels of education, and social status, it becomes clear that teachers as well as children need liberation.

Reflection

“Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.”

(Freire 1970, 72)

Through my graduate studies I’ve become nearly addicted to reflective practice. There is a feeling from the experience that is so hard to describe—a rewinding sensation, a moving and shifting moment in your mind, a disequilibrium as you play and replay your thoughts until suddenly a new idea emerges and you snap the bear trap shut on it. Dewey (1938, 87) and Freire (1970, 51) reveal reflection as crucial to thinking, and Bruner succinctly sews reflection to Vygotsky’s theories as “. . . a means for turning around upon one’s thoughts, for seeing them in a new light. This is, of course, mind reflecting on itself” (1986, 73). From Vygotsky I glean that reflection is not just valuable to the child, but essential to the practitioner who must determine the zone of proximal development of the child (1978, 85). With the notion of reflective thought as essential to learning and teaching, Freire’s definition of “praxis” as “. . . reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it” (1970, 51) becomes an integral term for use in my philosophical lexicon. I wonder, if I can help teachers see the hegemonic forces that require them to teach children in dehumanizing ways, will they be able to synthesize theory into practice?

Social-historical contexts

“When and if we pass beyond the unspoken despair in which we are now living, when we feel we are again able to control the race to destruction, a new breed of developmental theory is likely to arise. It will be motivated by the question of how to create a new generation that can prevent the world from dissolving into chaos and destroying itself. I think that its central technical concern will be how to create in the young an appreciation of the fact that many worlds are possible, that meaning and reality are created, not discovered.”

(Bruner 1986, 149)

If we heed Bruner’s ontological assertion that we live in a time of “unspoken despair,” then certainly it is time to move beyond developmental theory that is now taken as unquestioned science (Bruner 1986, 135). Ultimately each early childhood milieu and zeitgeist is informed by the socio-political context in which it emerges. As Vygotsky illustrates, the child’s move from “interpersonal” to “intrapersonal” processes (1978, 57) is shaped by the family culture, and thus by the surrounding society. In our contemporary era of terrorism, Ebola, school shootings, and civil unrest in towns like Ferguson, Missouri, it’s easy to assume a pessimistic worldview. For Freire, this is boiled down to his assertion that, “World and human beings do not exist apart from each other, they exist in constant interaction” (1970, 50). In reading Dewey (1938) and Bruner (1986) it’s clear that the negotiation between teacher and student reflects our wishes for society as a whole. What world do we want to live in? The democracy that is our legacy as Americans? Or the possible world in which we solve big problems that will save humanity from extinction? We don’t get there by shutting children down because they are sad. We get there through imagining what is possible.

In conclusion: Futurelessness

“We are, in consequence, in deep malaise, a malaise of futurelessness.”

—Bruner 1986, 148

After the incident when Lily was told to stop crying, I offered the staff a copy of Dan Gartrell’s The Power of Guidance: Teaching Social-Emotional Skills in Early Childhood Classrooms (2004), and made a concerted effort whenever possible to spend time modeling mindful communication in each classroom. There are still many times when I hear teachers making threats to children as the teacher did in that moment. However, I have come to realize that the oppression many preschool teachers face causes them to behave this way. They are inside the system and cannot see the forces that create it, and so they follow the script as it was given to them. But this “doing what was done to us” mentality of punishment and threats is not what will support the generation of saviors I believe we need.

My worldview was shaped by the experience of growing up in the 1980s, during an era that offered the dichotomy of excess and perfection; I default to a skeptical and sarcastic disposition. One of the great joys of working in early childhood education is the opportunity to reject the nihilism that is so easy for me to fall into, and witness the simple beauty of newly-discovered cracks in the sidewalk, or the sensation of running barefoot through very tall grass; the deep feelings of empathy or joy reverberating from children in play. It is a luxury to temporarily steal this perspective back from children when we know too well the possibility of futurelessness (Bruner 1986, 148) is real. We owe it to children to support their freedom, to think thoughtfully and deeply about their learning, and to examine the context in which we are teaching them for rips in the fabric of society. We are counting on them to beat back the tide of futurelessness, to sail against the current toward the horizon.

For further information, contact Heather Posner at h.p.posner@gmail.com.

The Cape Cod early childhood teacher research group began in the fall of 2011 with four members. Our current three members include a Head Start teacher, a family child care provider, and the early childhood education professor who introduced teacher research into the teacher education program at Cape Cod Community College, where the first two graduated from several years ago. Both teachers completed a teacher research study as an assignment in the practicum course prior to graduating. We have held monthly meetings since November 2011 at the college, and our enthusiasm even takes us through the summers.

We started with a small group to make it easier to get off the ground. After the first year, one of our members very reluctantly left, for personal reasons. We talked about opening up the group to more members, but felt it would significantly change our dynamics. In the end, we decided to keep it small because we thrived on the relationships in our close, tight-knit group. We learned that you do not have to have a large group for it to be effective. Recently we have been writing up our work to extend the influence of the group to other practitioners.

Each of us conducts our own teacher research inquiries at our sites; we then come together to share and discuss our research. We proceed at our own pace; when we complete one study, we begin a new one. We use a simple protocol in our meetings, discussing our questions, relevant literature and research, methodology, and findings. Everyone has equal time to present their current data and ideas, and we offer feedback to one another. Thus, each member contributes resources and insights into each teacher research inquiry. For example, we bring in professional articles that are relevant to our own research or that of another group member and discuss the way these relate to our own theories of learning and teaching.

We stay in the group for its concrete professional and personal benefits. As members state,

Heidi:

What keeps me coming back to our group is the overall feeling of being connected to a worthwhile cause. The support and words of encouragement are priceless. Debra’s years of experience and knowledge in the field and Holly’s inspiration and insight combine to create a valuable tool in attaining the skills needed to overcome obstacles and enrich my learning environment. It sometimes is difficult to find the time to get away from my busy schedule, but I never regret making the effort to get to our meetings. I always leave with a positive outlook on what we are trying to accomplish. I also find a sense of relief from the knowledge that I am not alone in my frustrations and attempts to resolve the daily issues involved in running a family childcare business.

Holly:

I stay in the group because it is a great support system. I have Debra as a great mentor and a fellow teacher who understands my point of view and any issues or concerns that I may have. We understand each other and have the same passion and goals. Our overall goal is to never settle. We constantly work to better ourselves and better understand the children we work with. Our meetings are like mini-therapy sessions where we can air out all of our issues and try to solve them productively, bouncing ideas off one another and sharing resources. I look forward to our meetings, and always feel better when I leave—I’ve accomplished something!

Debra:

My original teacher research question for the group was, “How can I support program graduates to continue to participate in teacher research after it is no longer a course assignment?” I have been studying the impact of the group and teacher research on my practice as a teacher educator, as well as my role in the group as a member. The process and the group itself have answered my question, offering “proof-of-concept.” Teacher research and participation in this group has enriched my work at the college immeasurably and will continue to be an important mainstay of my program.

Since our original studies, we have pursued many teacher research studies. Our teacher research focuses on critical issues in our program. Two examples of our teacher research studies include the following.

Example 1

In her inquiry on foster care, Holly looked at how she could support 4-year-old twin girls in foster care after they visit their birth mother and older sister. “It seems that Monday and Tuesday the girls are fine, but after their visit on Wednesdays they are more defiant and had more frequent tantrums throughout the day in school.” With support from the group, she reviewed the literature about young children in foster care and shared data. Her data included classroom maps, anecdotal observations, photographs, artifacts, and a detailed reflection journal. With insight from the group and the collaboration of her Head Start colleagues she developed a successful approach for the girls and the family.

Example 2

In one of Heidi’s studies she examined how she could support a 2-year-old boy who lived in the custody of his step-grandmother—his mother’s father’s ex-wife, who also had an 11-year-old son herself. The toddler was demonstrating many challenging behaviors, often lashing out at other children. Heidi wanted to develop a positive approach for him and the family. She reviewed the literature on positive guidance with the group and shared photographs and anecdotal observations. The group contributed their ideas to her plan. She found that her focus on catching him in moments when things went well changed her perception, and that just changing her perception of him made a difference.

Working with this group has become a vital part of our work with young children and their families. We are able to bounce ideas off of each other and offer support, not only from different viewpoints but from different experiences as well. As one member states,

It makes you really look at what is going on instead of just saying, “Oh, this is just how it’s going to be. It’s never going to change.” It gives you the opportunity to try to change it and to talk to others about your research and realize that you are not alone.

Teacher research offers teachers agency to solve our own problems in the classroom. Through the opportunity to share what we have discovered and learned from each other our teacher research group provides both professional incentive and means to improve our performance as practitioners. We expand our knowledge of a situation or topic that affects our everyday classroom experience. In turn, we aid the children and families we work with through our focus on children’s growth and work toward improving aspects of the classroom such as curriculum and relationships with children, parents, and the community.

It also directly benefits teachers’ own well-being. As one member relates,

Seeing the benefits of teacher research makes you want to do it. It is being proactive to fix something or work toward something. It’s like helping yourself in your own life, your own aura, your own mental sanity.

Too often, professional learning is structured by a top-down model where educational knowledge is constructed outside the classroom and transmitted to teachers, who must then implement the required program or content. Practitioner inquiry disrupts such prevalent arrangements, providing opportunities for teachers to theorize their practice and investigate issues they identify as important (Cochran-Smith & Lytle 1999; 2009). The goal of such research is not merely to critique existing educational arrangements, but to take action and construct alternatives more conducive to children’s flourishing (Campano 2007; 2009).

For the past three years, I have collaborated with teachers in a multilingual school district in a large northeastern city through professional development courses we have restructured along an inquiry-based model. The courses focus on investigating the languages and literacies of children and families, and how educators might learn from and include such cultural and linguistic funds of knowledge (Moll et al., Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992) within school contexts (Moll et al., Amanti, Neff, & González, 1992). The group is intentionally composed of individuals from different institutions, age groups, and job descriptions. This inspires dialogue, allows us to better learn from one another, and fosters inquiry into interrelated issues affecting immigrant families that extends beyond an individual classroom. For example, early childhood educators working with English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers who span the elementary grades can together reinforce the need for shared advocacy for students. At times, our inquiry groups have also included high school teachers, creating a platform for investigating learning across the grades, delving into overlaps and divergences in academic practices and expectations, and exploring how intergenerational networks might be a resource for multicultural learning. The courses provide structures to support such collaboration, a dimension often difficult to encompass within the demands of a regular school day.

The meetings entail discussing educational literature, participating in pedagogical experiences about language and literacy learning (including Spanish-language experiences, which foster better understanding of how children with emerging proficiencies in English navigate the curriculum), and jointly examining data in the form of children’s work and teacher practices. The goal is to create a climate of dialogue where teachers’ own professional questions are honored and collectively explored. The following examples provide a window into this inquiry-based work.

• Changing the school environment: Troubled by the messages their physical settings may have conveyed regarding inclusion and exclusion, two groups of teachers examined their school sites with regard for how environmental print and public imagery did or did not reflect children’s native languages and cultures. Each of the groups then took action by altering the surroundings based on a resource orientation (Ruiz 1984). They replaced English-only signs with ones representing the schools’ multiple languages, choosing high-profile placements such as the Visitor’s Log-in Book, the front door, and the main public hallway. In this way, changes would not be confined only to their classrooms. For both groups, the project also entailed an interactive component: children participated in schoolwide investigations of different countries and languages, posting questions and predictions in a central public space. English language learners were invited to help direct the inquiries and also to showcase their multilingual knowledge through the public announcement system.

• Sharing available resources: A kindergarten teacher noted that although Spanish speakers were the most represented language group in the district, her work in community outreach revealed that Latino families were not utilizing the library. As a result, she undertook a project to familiarize them with this resource, which she titled “Bienvenido a la biblioteca libre” (Welcome to the Free Library). She conducted interviews with librarians and community members to understand available services and possible obstacles for families in accessing them. As a result of her research, she developed and distributed a bilingual pamphlet that included maps to the closest library and pictures to illustrate its resources. She conducted Spanish language tours of the site that brought together Latino families from across the district, and provided childcare during the event in the form of a Storybook Reading Time so that more parents could attend.

• Reconceptualizing children’s experiences: An ESL teacher working with primary grade children was dissatisfied with the battery of tests in English that newcomers were given upon entrance to her school. She examined how the design of such evaluation measures effectively positioned English language learners as failing instead of focusing on either their resources or information that could substantively inform instruction. She consequently devised an alternative set of assessments in Spanish more conducive to accurately understanding the children, including their rich cultural and linguistic resources. She also hopes to work with school translators to offer the assessments in other languages.

• Building multilingual libraries and cultural networks: After investigating the role of native language literacies, several educators applied for and received grants to acquire multilingual children’s literature in order to diversify their school libraries. These texts have then been used for Multilingual Literacy Nights, where children and families are invited to engage with books in their native languages and teachers emphasize the importance of oral storytelling for supporting children’s emergent bilingual literacy. One insight from such gatherings has been the realization that many families have felt isolated. This is leading to further inquiry and action to build networks among families.

These undertakings constitute only a subset of the varied projects and issues the teachers have researched, and the ongoing directions we continue to explore. It is heartening to see educators across a district working together in communities of inquiry to think creatively about early childhood educational practices in support of diverse children and families.

Math and Science Inquiry Project (MSIP) consisted of a group of seven early childhood educators focusing on aspects of math and science learning for young children. The group formed in September 2009 and was coordinated by Drs. Judy Kysh and Daniel Meier of San Francisco State University. It was funded by a grant from the Center for Math and Science Education at San Francisco State University. The group was composed of three teachers from a campus-based preschool (who work with infants to preschoolers), two preschool directors,a kindergarten teacher, and a community outreach coordinator at a local children’s museum.

Project goals

• To support improvement in teaching science and mathematics by working with teachers to develop their understanding of the subject matter and implementation of teaching methods

• To help group members develop skills for conducting their own classroom-based research on effective science and mathematics instruction

• To build a community of teacher researchers in local schools who share their research and provide the leadership to sustain an inquiry group of supportive colleagues

Project activities

Each project member received a stipend for participating in this yearlong inquiry group. Group members also received complimentary copies of two texts on inquiry/teacher research. In addition, they attended a mathematics education conference at Asilomar, California, to provide additional background on current mathematics instruction.

The group met once a month for two hours. Each project member brought a piece of the data from their particular math/science inquiry focus that they conducted at their sites. Two group members who teach together collaborated on their data collection. Project group meetings included discussion of key ideas and methods from our two inquiry texts.

The group meetings served as a way to focus on issues of data collection, data analysis, development of peer support and feedback, and final research project dissemination. Each participant wrote a short report on their inquiry project at year’s end. Six members of the group have submitted a proposal to the Teacher as Researcher Special Interest Group at the 2011 Annual Conference of the American Educational Research Association (AERA).

Project findings include:

1. The varied nature of the group (from teachers to administrators to a museum outreach coordinator) promoted an intriguing range of perspectives on children’s math/science learning as well as the inquiry process

2. The combination of data samples and the reading of sections of the two inquiry texts helped integrate data and analysis/reflection

3. The age/developmental range (from infants to kindergartners) of the group participants provided data on children’s math/science learning across the 0–8 age span

4. This kind of inquiry project served as an important form of professional development for promoting math/science knowledge and inquiry methods

5. The project provided opportunities for cross-site discussion and collaboration.

The term research-based practices often refers to the practice of teaching based on theories and philosophies rooted in a scientific understanding of children’s early development. But as theories become more abstract, so too do the researchers developing them. Educational research thus moves farther away from the practical classroom applications of the theory. In order for there to be research-based practices, there needs to be practical research.

One form of practical research comes from practicing teachers. Teachers who reflect on their practices and consider the implications not only for their own classroom, but for others as well, can make unique contributions to the field of education. By collaborating with other reflective teachers, teacher researchers gain insights about the minds of the children they teach and about methods of improving classroom practices.

It is in this vein that the Reflective Early Childhood Educators’ Social Seminar (RECESS) was created. A collective of reflective teachers of young children in the Chicago area, we dedicated ourselves to improving the quality of education in our classrooms. Through visiting each other’s sites and conducting regular meetings, RECESS members shared teaching experiences to gain a greater understanding of children and how they learn.

Each member of the group investigated a particular focusing question in his or her classroom. When we met, we focused on one of these questions. We shared stories of our classroom experiences as they related to the topic of inquiry and raised questions based on these stories. As we discussed the questions, group members gained insight not only into the investigation presented at the meeting, but also into their own question as it related to the topic.

The teachers at the Kent State University Child Development Center, a laboratory school for children 18 months through kindergarten, are engaged in teacher research with children and families about the nature of relationships formed in the outdoors. The context for this research is a campus full of hills, trees, and gardens and an adjacent wetland area with a variety of plant and animal life, creeks, ponds, and woods.

The goals of our project are to understand the child’s approach to natural outdoor spaces, to engage families in dialogue regarding the value of nature experiences, and to support preservice teachers’ knowledge of the integrated learning opportunities when children explore natural spaces on campus, in the wetlands, on the school playground, and in their own neighborhoods.

The following are some of our findings:

• As small groups of children and teachers explore natural places, they can listen to each other on a level not always possible indoors. This ability to listen closely to others supports the group decision-making, negotiation, and problem solving experiences that naturally occur in the outdoors.

• As the children establish their own landmarks in the outdoors, they begin to form an identity with these outdoor places (for example, a drainpipe covered by a grill becomes “a bear cage”; a group of trees becomes the “whispering woods”). In these places, the children engage in rich, imaginative storytelling that blends science and fantasy. They also desire to bring the outdoors back to their classroom through dramatic play and the creation of maps of the wetland using the landmarks as points of reference.

• Children engage in more positive risk-taking in the outdoors. They test their physical capabilities and share their thinking and stories. We observe that children who engage in less verbal communication indoors often become eager to talk when outdoors. Individual learning styles often become more visible in the outdoors.

• Children are able to slow down, observe carefully, explore intentionally, and make many discoveries that are later shared with other children and adults. Gardening on the playground becomes an opportunity for children to study the life cycle of plants.

• Children become caretakers of their outdoor environments. They develop habits related to honoring and protecting the natural environment. In a book written by a group of preschoolers, they stated their rights and responsibilities in the outdoors (for example, “We never pick anything that is living”).

As the children document their encounters in the outdoors and represent their findings through drawing, painting, and other forms of expression, they begin to understand the connectedness of all living things.

These teacher-and-child research projects depend on a support system for conducting teacher research with children. Teachers have studied teacher research methodology, including framing the question, observing and documenting, interpreting, and communicating findings. They have organized themselves into critical friends groups, small groups of teachers exploring a particular aspect of the schoolwide nature studies—for example, two teachers are studying

the ways toddlers and preschoolers communicate their findings to each other about the birds that feed just outside their windows. Other aspects of the support system include resource people to support the process of teacher research and time for study together.

One of our research projects was published in the July 2009 issue of Young Children (“We Need a Way to Get to the Other Side: Exploring the Possibilities for Learning in Natural Spaces,” by Galizio, Stoll, and Hutchins). We also share research projects with families and visitors by displaying collaborative hallway panels that communicate the importance of outdoor explorations for young children’s learning.

For questions about this project, please contact Carol Bersani, Associate Professor, Director, Kent State University Child Development Center, at cbersani@kent.edu.

For the past three years, the Lee Academy Pilot School, a pre-K through grade 5 Boston Public School, has partnered with the staff of the Making Learning Visible Project—a research project of Project Zero at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—to promote learning communities among children and adults. During the 2009–2010 academic year, instructional coach Marina Boni of the Early Childhood Division of Boston Public Schools joined our effort. We are focusing on how to best support conversations and storytelling among the 3- to 5-year-old children in the school’s early academy.

Our guiding inquiry questions are,

• How can teachers best support the oral language development of a diverse group of young children at an urban public school?

• How can a school faculty come together to build knowledge and improve their instructional practices?

Every other week, Marina or Ben Mardell and Mara Krechevsky, staff of the Making Learning Visible Project, facilitate a discussion among the six preschool teachers and two kindergarten teachers during their common planning time, a forty-five-minute period during the school day. Teachers take turns bringing a question about their practice and a related artifact to these meetings. For example, a teacher who wondered what questions to ask to extend his students’ conversations brought a transcript of a conversation from his class. A teacher wanting to refine her prompts to promote storytelling brought a videotape of her eliciting a story from a child.

The protocol guiding our conversations includes the following steps:

• The presenting teacher describes her question and provides a brief context

for the artifact she is sharing.

• Teachers carefully review the artifact, make observations, and discuss the material the presenting teacher shared.

• The teachers answer the presenting teacher’s questions.

• During a few minutes of silent, individual reflection time, the teachers consider the feedback provided during the session and think about how it might influence their teaching practice. The facilitators encourage the teachers to share their reflections.

Each session builds on the preceding session’s conversation. Teachers report on strategies related to the previous meeting’s topic that they have tried, and they discuss new questions that have emerged.

Kindergarten teacher Erin Daly feels that the time to reflect at the end of the conversation, even if only a few minutes, is very valuable, giving her a chance to plan how she can move her practice forward. Preschool teacher David Ramsey appreciates the chance to talk to colleagues about teaching and learning.

Building knowledge and influencing practice through collaborative teacher research requires a culture in which teachers are accountable to themselves and each other. The facilitators, Marina, Ben, and Mara, support this culture in several ways. As noted above, we bring teachers’ ideas and practice to the forefront by beginning each session with teachers’ descriptions of how they have tried to support conversations and storytelling in their classrooms since the last meeting. We reproduce the teachers’ insights in several documents (for example, a list of prompts for supporting storytelling) and bring these documents back to the group for feedback. We check in with the teachers—individually and as a group—to see if there are ways our work can better support their teaching.

Given the multiple demands teachers face, helping them focus on one topic is a challenge. However, real learning comes when teachers have opportunities to carefully track, collect evidence, and reflect on one aspect of children’s learning over time. It is a process for which teacher research is well suited.

For more information, visit Making Learning Visible: Understanding, Documenting, and Supporting Individual and Group Learning at www.pz.harvard.edu/mlv. See also Project Zero & Reggio Children’s Making Learning Visible: Children as Individualand Group Learners (Cambridge, MA: Project Zero, 2001).

Located in the heart of the Mission District of San Francisco, California, Las Americas Early Education School is part of the San Francisco Unified School District Child Development Program. Our school provides a nurturing educational program inspired by the project approach, an academic philosophy that embraces children’s interests as the starting point for in-depth study of specific topics through multiple media: reading, writing, drawing, field trips, and creative arts such as painting, collage-making, music, and movement.

Reflecting the ethnic, economic, cultural, and linguistic tapestry of our city, our school includes a multiage preschool program for children ages 3 to 5, a mainstreamed special education preK program, and an educational after-school and summer program for children in kindergarten through fifth grade. We aim to provide an environment-based curriculum using our school garden to connect nature, outdoor learning, and academic success. In our classrooms we offer children a rich variety of materials to explore and represent their ideas and emergent understanding on a variety of topics; in the process they create their own knowledge, with teachers offering support as needed at specific points of the learning experience.

Our staff has a commitment to support children’s interests and curiosity by listening, observing, and documenting. We document their theories, ideas, and feelings through stories, photographs, dictations, audiotaped conversations, and drawings. We believe that when children work and play in small groups they are better able to explore and understand concepts of literacy, numeracy, nature, and the creative arts. Besides ensuring the safety of the children and their social-emotional well-being, we believe that one of the most important and challenging roles as teachers is to present children with thought-provoking questions or situations that encourage them to expand their emergent analytical thinking.

Preschool head teachers Isauro Michael Escamilla and Mary Lin graduated from the master’s program in education with a concentration in early childhood from San Francisco State University, and consider teacher research an art as much as a science. Both are experienced teachers with a personal interest in pursuing the underpinnings of teacher research as a pedagogical tool to guide their own professional growth. Some of their work with children has been published in Learning from Young Children:The Art and Science of Teacher Research (Meier & Henderson 2007), Young Children (Escamilla 2004), and more recently in Teaching Young Children (NAEYC 2010).

The other teachers in our program have different levels of expertise and knowledge about the inquiry process and systematic documentation of children’s learning experiences. Our inquiry group, described below, has provided the right context to share experiences, find answers to common questions, and more importantly develop the habit of collaborative reflection as a strategy to gain a better understanding of our role as educators of young children.

Our teacher research inquiry group

Our monthly teacher research team meetings help us further our understanding of the research process as it relates to documentation of children’s learning experiences based on classroom projects. These meetings, supported by professor Daniel Meier, provide the pedagogical framework needed to reflect on practical day-to-day decisions about children’s interests, and possibilities for inquiry based on those interests and activities. We hope to provide an on-site pedagogical forum to further our understanding of our role as educators and to improve our skills as critical thinkers and teacher researchers.

Our inquiry group is composed of two head teachers, two associate teachers, and two assistant teachers. All teachers are bilingual and speak Spanish, Cantonese, or Mandarin. We have different levels of expertise in the field, with a range of four to almost 15 years in the classroom.

We consistently meet approximately once a month for an hour and a half to discuss the progress of our class projects and the content of assigned readings. In order to create a common experience we decided to read the book Learning from Young Childrenin the Classroom: The Art and Science of Teacher Research (Meier & Henderson 2007) as a way to reflect on our job as educators, develop a common professional language, learn specific data collection strategies, and further our understanding of classroom based research. From the outset, each teacher received a copy of the book; a teaching journal to keep up with the development of class projects, observations, and pedagogical reflections; a notebook for note taking during meetings; a calendar and folders;and one digital camera per room in addition to a tape recorder and a computer.

An important aspect of our inquiry group is the relaxed atmosphere and flexible formality of our meetings, with teacher researcher Isauro Michael Escamilla serving as group coordinator. Our meetings are not mandatory for the staff, but have become a forum where we can present to colleagues our ongoing projects, samples of children’s work, emerging documentation panels, and the challenges we face to move projects forward. During these meetings we get constructive feedback, ideas, or strategies and we set new goals for the next meeting. More than anything else, these sessions have provided a framework to acquire a common language and the opportunity to learn or redefine the meaning of terms such as observations, reflective practice, pedagogical reflections, teaching journal, documentation of children’s learning experiences, classroom-based inquiry, and active listening, to name a few.

Research examples

Our inquiry group explores a wide variety of topics. For example, in a recent meeting teacher Mary Lin focused her attention on an emergent interest in writing from a small group of kindergarten-bound children, and the strategies that teachers could use to help these children become proficient in holding different writing tools.

Throughout this richly documented project—which included photographs, teacher reflections, children’s dictations, and writing samples dating back several months—Mary Lin discovered and confirmed that strategies are subject to differences in cultural beliefs, the involved adults’ personal upbringing, and each child’s skills, age, and dispositions to learning. She shared specific activities that helped children gain a more meaningful understanding of the writing process. Some of these activities were sensory, such as when she gently traced letters and other shapes with her fingers on the children’s backs while they simultaneously wrote down the same letters or shapes they were feeling (and reading) with their bodies.

Other examples included writing in the air and manipulating playdough or sticky foam to engage the children in creative writing. She discovered that “playdough and sticky foam lead children to the sensory exploration of the abstract concept of letters, as the children represented the letters in a more concrete manner by manipulating, bending, and twisting the sticky foam to form random and letter-like symbols that had meaning for the children.” She explains the influence of teacher research on her teaching:

My participation in the teacher research meetings has encouraged me to question the status quo and to challenge my own assumptions and beliefs. The group has opened my mind to new possibilities in the way I teach children and collaborate with colleagues. Most importantly, it has made me be fully aware of how much I actually learn from coteachers and children.

The parents and guardians of the children who participated in this particular writing project shared that they observed great improvement in how their children held their pencils, crayons, or markers. Lin’s coteachers Edwin Serrano and Sahara Gonzalez also noticed an increase in children’s motivation to write, either with a marker on paper, a stick in the sand, or with plain water and a paintbrush on the walls in the school yard. Suddenly, writing became an enjoyable, stress-free activity for both children and teachers. The inquisitive nature of project-based learning and teacher research opened multiple perspectives on how to best support our young learners to develop a disposition to engage in real or imaginary writing. In this context, Lin and her coteachers promoted an optimal environment for creativity, laying a solid foundation for learning to take place.

Some of the projects we are currently working on and that are still in different stages of development are:

In our first 18 months, our teacher research inquiry group has accomplished several objectives in accordance with our original goals. Some further questions we would like to reflect on, regardless of our topic of investigation, are:

• How do we find a balance between children leading the projects and teachers’ guidance?

• How can we teach and at the same time collect data from multiple children?

• How can we deepen our reflective practice skills to find the pedagogical meaning behind the activities?

• How can we facilitate school-home connections when working on long-term projects?

Although most of the staff have embraced the principles of teacher research and the role of the teacher as observer, recorder, and interpreter of children’s learning experiences, the premise of teacher research still remains thought-provoking. Perhaps this is because it contradicts the common perception that teachers are not deep thinkers and theory-makers. In many ways, teacher research breaks the stereotype of teachers as holders of knowledge and children as recipients of information; it encourages critical thinking along with self-reflection as common teaching practice. In any case, one of the themes that has emerged from our discussions is how to listen to the children and to ourselves, which has led us to the exploration of a pedagogy of listening within the teacher research context. The more we explore this topic, the more we discover that the traditional roles of teacher and learner as opposites tend to blend; the inquiry process helps us understand that these roles can and should be interchangeable.

Being a part of this group makes us feel a responsibility not only towards the children, but also towards each one of our members—when we commit to carry out a specific task, most of us tend to follow through and come fully prepared to the next meeting. Moreover, these gatherings may also count as professional growth hours to fulfill SF CARES requirements in order to obtain an annual monetary stipend. Professor Meier is also investigating how staff might be able to gain a college credit for professional development through local colleges and universities.

The success of our teacher research group at Las Americas Early Education School is in great measure the result of a staff-driven idea, as opposed to a top-down mandate. In a way, just like children, we are creators of our own knowledge. However, these opportunities for professional growth would have been more challenging without both the administration’s support and funding from the Preschool For All (PFA) program, which is part of the First 5 San Francisco initiative. Our current site manager, David Hollands, has expressed that our group provides a unique scholarly forum for teacher-initiated inquiry, in-depth observations, and interpretations and discourse, which only improve the teaching/learning experience of both teachers and students. Funding for substitutes has been possible through PFA and the First 5 San Francisco initiative, allowing our group to meet for more time.

In a recent staff meeting, Hollands outlined the expectation that our expanded support will provide more opportunities for enhanced class project developments, field research, innovative data collecting strategies, and field trips to exemplary schools in our area. He added: “The teacher research group . . . has been central to our faculty’s team building and core competence. The individual and collective professional development of this diverse group of educators has been impressive and will continue to evolve.”

Teaching can become quite an isolating profession; our teacher research group has made it possible to create a community of educators brought together by the need to make visible their voices, ideas, and learning journeys, with the ultimate goal of offering young children meaningful educational experiences.

References
Escamilla, I.M. 2004. A dialogue with the shadows. Young Children 59 (2): 96–100.
Meier, D.R., & B. Henderson. 2007. Learning from young children in the classroom: The art and science of teacher research. New York: Teacher College Press.
NAEYC. 2010. Collage. What do I do? I teach! Isauro Michael Escamilla. Teaching Young Children 3(3): 4–5.